Multiculturalism And The American Culture

America is greatly influenced and enhanced by the many versatile cultures which inhabit it. Cultural diversity has added to our economy in such a way that it brings innovated ideas and contact structures throughout the world. International cuisines have come to America through subcultures, have expanded the food industry, and have allowed English Americans to try new foods and flavors. Immigrants have brought with them religious values that greatly differ and vary from those at which were natural in the main stream American culture. The educational development through foreign nationals has led America, as a nation, to excel and be deemed one of the most intelligent nations in the world! Consequently, the subcultures have kept our

For immigrants in America, two radically different choices of culture exist. First, the immigrants can choose to stay loyal to their ancestral roots and deny mainstream culture. Instead of contributing to the melting pot of opinions present they isolate within themselves by refusing to learn both the English language and American culture as a whole. Because they cannot communicate with a majority of the population, they don’t maintain any amount of control over American ideals including both politically and socially. The second opportunity available would be to embrace this new found culture, no matter how foreign it is to them, and develop a sense of unity with America. If immigrants wish to break the currently controlled system of power and privilege in America and truly become a part of American customs, they must learn to assimilate culturally.

The United States of America is a perfect example of cultural diversity. Starting with the Mayflower landing in Massachusetts Bay in 1620, to the Great Migration from 1915 to 1930, to the continual immigration into our country today this country has seen its culture grow and reshape itself over the years. The culture of the United States is diverse but understanding and appreciating various cultures does not always exist within today’s classroom or in today’s society. Understanding or even defining cultural diversity , identifying the challenges cultural diversity brings, or how to face cultural diversity are all issues educators face in today’s classroom.

The Author Marable defines “multiculturalism” as “the recognition that our nation’s cultural heritage that does not begin and end with the intellectual and aesthetic products of Western Europe, rather multiculturalism rejects the model of cultural assimilation and social conformity.” However, Multiculturalism is often been misinterpreted, Marable according to him said that, the “melting pot” never existed.

Throughout history many ethnic cliques have experienced abuse and distrust from our American society. The people in America seem to be less understanding, and less willing to accept cultures different from their own, at least years ago. Groups such as the Indians, the African Americans, and the Immigrants, fall deeply into this category. The situations and struggles they have gone through are greatly explained in Ronald Takaki’s novel, “A Different Mirror, A History of a Multicultural America.” Although they have experienced a lot, particular financial and social configuration have changed, helping change our perspective of each civilization, for better or even worse.

BBC News states that “ the melting pot imagery has been contested by the idea of multiculturalism, the “salad bowl theory”, or as it is known in Canada, “the Cultural Mosaic”, whereby the immigrants retain their own national characteristics while integrating into a new society” (“Melting pot America”) . BBC News put into words that while immigrants are trying to settle into a new society and new culture they can express their lifestyle along the way. The process of integrating into a new civilization is all about coming together as a whole which creates “America’s Melting point” status. BBC News explains that immigrants have been coming into the United States and have been able to keep and bring in their cultural background during the development. Brandi Waters states that “America is a country of immigrants… one thing that every immigrant brings with them is their culture”. He claims that to be the reason why America is known as the melting pot with all new immigrants with different cultures blending with the American culture (“America: a Melting Pot of Cultures”). Brandi Waters has well explaining that immigrants contribute to the American culture. They expanded on the diversity and culture involving themselves with the already settled in, but also mixed variety United States of America. Waters is explaining that America’s melting pot is made up of all the diverse

Ask any American how they feel about multiculturalism you are likely to get one of two responses: either a cringe or a smile. Those that cringe will say something along the line of “Multiculturalism is the wrong way to look at things. It separates us by saying that everyone is different instead of saying that we are the same and unifying us.” Those that smile will talk about how great multiculturalism is because they get to see aspects of all different cultures on television and on the radio and they are free to explore all the different things that various cultures have to offer. In actuality, one cannot help but wonder if either of these responses reflects the true meaning of multiculturalism? What do

Throughout history there has been a cluster of tension and conflict between police and minority communities within the United States. The job of a police officer is to enforce the law and protect all citizens regardless of their race, gender, or sexual preferences; however, more and more police departments across the United States are being accused of targeting and harassing those who are different. State and local police departments have been left to their own devices on how to police minority communities and improve cultural differences among their officers by seeking out a reform recruitment and adjusting policies in hopes to attract a significant improvement of minority applicants, all while training other officers in understanding

Cultural diversity, or multiculturalism, is based on the idea that cultural identities should not be discarded or ignored, but rather maintained and valued. The foundation of this belief is that every culture and race has made a substantial contribution to American history. However, many people remain opposed to the idea of multiculturalism, or cultural diversity awareness, while others often support it and yet have no clear idea of how it should be taught. The diversity of the United States is truly astounding, as many different ethnic and racial groups have contributed to the social,

The concept of cultural pluralism suggests that immigrants should assimilate to American culture by enriching American traditions with those that other cultures bring with them, expanding the American cultural landscape of art, cuisine, education, history, law, music, language, medicine and other aspects of life.

Multiculturalism is the act of giving equivalent consideration regarding various foundations in a specific setting, and it can happen when a purview is made or extended by amalgamating zones with two or more diverse societies or through migration from various locales around the globe. Multiculturalism that seeks in keeping up the peculiarity of numerous societies is regularly differentiated to other settlement arrangements, for example, social mix, social osmosis, and racial isolation. Multiculturalism has been depicted as a "salad bowl" and "cultural mosaic" (Burgess, et al. 2005). In spite of the way that multiculturalism has predominantly been utilized as a term to characterize distraught gatherings, numerous scholars tend to center their contentions on outsiders who are ethnic and religious minorities, minority countries, and indigenous people groups. The term multiculturalism is frequently utilized as a part of a reference to Western country states, which

Culture is a behavior that consists of several critical elements, such as language, religion, race and ethnicity, clothing and politics. Culture is what one does in his/her daily life. In order to understand others, we must first keep in mind that every culture carries its own set of values and assumptions. Culture is an evolving, ever changing civilization, which includes several different groups people. For immigrants, America is a land of opportunity; for others it is just the best country in the world because of its economic success and/or its democratic political system. Americans usually value independence a lot, believe in equal opportunity, and have a direct communication

The side in opposition to multiculturalism firmly believes that it weakens America by keeping immigrants from adequately assimilating to the core values of America’s Anglo Protestant identity. This side believes that multiculturalism weakens the “social bond” of the United States by denying that immigrants need to assimilate to the language and values of the country’s dominant culture. The rise of non-English speaking communities is seen as a detrimental factor in the goal of achieving unity in American culture. Opponents state that immigrants coming to the United States must always lose their previous culture from their country of origin, to be able to completely assimilate to and fully embrace

Multiculturalism is the occurrence of multiple cultures within one society, fundamentally due to the influx of immigrant societies, or the approval and encouragement of this occurrence. Many people have different views of multiculturalism. The people who have a negative view towards multiculturalism tend to argue against the uniting of a wide range of different cultures, races and faiths, in their points of view multiculturalism would be seen as a “mosaic” form, which tends to occur more likely in the US than in Europe, as it would fundamentally mean that they are putting races, religions and cultures into different groups, however they are not uniting as one society, another word for that would be integration. Whereas, the people that agree

The “melting pot” culture refers to people from various cultures coming together to create a new unique culture. (Lorenzo, 2000) In other words, these cultures have ‘melted’ together in a ‘pot’. For example, Chinese, Koreans, Germans and more cultures blended in together to create a whole new American culture. They are not Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans or German-Americans anymore but just Americans. On the other hand, “salad bowl” culture refers to immigrants who do not lose the aspects of their cultures. . (Lorenzo, 2000) To put it in another way, you can still clearly see the different ‘ingredients’ in a ‘salad bowl’. As a contrast to the melting pot theory’s example, Chinese-Americans, Korean-Americans and German-Americans will still keep the unique traits of their cultures while living together in the country. America has been traditionally referred to as a ‘melting pot’, but recently; there are people who argue that ‘salad bowl’ will be a better description of America’s society today.